Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news from the heart of
Speaker 1: where innovation, money and power collide in Silicon Valley and beyond.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Technology with Caroline Hyde and Ed Ludlow.
Speaker 2: Live from New York.
Speaker 3: I'm Caroline Hyde, and this is Bloomberg Technology.
Speaker 2: Coming up.
Speaker 3: Tesla the shares sync after its deliveries full thirteen percent
Speaker 3: over the last quarter, the lowest since twenty twenty two,
Speaker 3: plus investors brace for tarifs a head of President Trump's
Speaker 3: Rose Garden announcement today, we'll discuss what this means for
Speaker 3: the global tech trade and Chinese US relations. And we
Speaker 3: sit down exclusively with the CEO of Roadblocks as a
Speaker 3: company launches new parental control, and we discuss its ad
Speaker 3: partnership with Google. But first we check in on these
Speaker 3: markets that fluctuate ahead of the all important announcements from
Speaker 3: the Rose Garden. Later today, President Trump set to unveil
Speaker 3: what Liberation Day really means. We're flat on the day
Speaker 3: on the NASAQ one hundred, but dig into some of
Speaker 3: the key movers. I single out one Tesla. We're off
Speaker 3: by one point six percent, had been lower in earlier trading.
Speaker 3: But let's dig into the details of what people are
Speaker 3: saying is production issue but also a political issue. It's
Speaker 3: the worst sales slump for Tesla going back to twenty
Speaker 3: twenty two. They delivered just three hundred and thirty six
Speaker 3: thousand vehicles, falling short of the average three hundred ninety
Speaker 3: thousand estimated by analysts.
Speaker 2: For more, we go to Bloombo's Cray Trudel.
Speaker 3: It's about three hundred and sixty thousand and six hundred
Speaker 3: vehicles delivered. But analysts had braced for a slowdown, but
Speaker 3: not this big of a slowdown.
Speaker 2: Craig.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there were some that were even predicting a year
Speaker 4: over year growth, which seems kind of hard to leave
Speaker 4: when you look at the publicly available figures that we
Speaker 4: had throughout the quarter, especially over here in Europe, we
Speaker 4: saw just really substantial declines and some of the biggest
Speaker 4: ev markets but this was pretty widespread, right. We saw
Speaker 4: also in China the wholesales out of the Shanghai plant
Speaker 4: were down, you know, month after month in the first quarter,
Speaker 4: and so you know, as you alluded to earlier, this
Speaker 4: is a matter of both you know, Musk's politicking coming
Speaker 4: into play, but also you know, more mundane factors like
Speaker 4: changing over the model Why, which you know, we'll better
Speaker 4: get a handle on just how much you know, one
Speaker 4: factored into into this versus the other as the week's
Speaker 4: you know, you know, in the coming weeks when we
Speaker 4: get a better sense of just how well the new
Speaker 4: newer model Why is doing.
Speaker 3: Mundane factors such as competition as well, most fiercely in China,
Speaker 3: can you just break out where in particular the geographies
Speaker 3: were worse.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean the company doesn't offer a regional breakdown unfortunately,
Speaker 4: but we know that in China, BID is really just
Speaker 4: mopping up. We're seeing them really, you know, pull further
Speaker 4: ahead from the competition Tesla and otherwise we've seen also
Speaker 4: Gan me you know, turn a lot of heads and
Speaker 4: really you know, pull away consumers that might have otherwise
Speaker 4: looked at at buying a Tesla. I think one of
Speaker 4: the challenges that you're seeing for the company is that
Speaker 4: you know, they just don't have as broad a lineup
Speaker 4: or as affordable a lineup as BYD does, and so
Speaker 4: they are just not the volume player that they used
Speaker 4: to be in that market and cannot keep up with BYD.
Speaker 3: China's Passenger Car Association releasing data that Seeson eleven percent slide.
Speaker 3: For Tesla in France it was down more than thirty percent.
Speaker 3: Once again, just tell us the nuance of what we
Speaker 3: expect to hear from Elon Musk on this. In the
Speaker 3: past they have tried to direct as to why they've
Speaker 3: slown down and blaming in many parts the production overhaul.
Speaker 2: Will we hear from him on the back of these is.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I think one of the things that's interesting to
Speaker 4: me about these figures that they reported today is is
Speaker 4: that production exceeded deliveries by a fairly substantial margin. And
Speaker 4: so this excuse that this was just you know, production constrain,
Speaker 4: you know, that that was at issue, doesn't really seem
Speaker 4: to work out. Of course, you would expect there to
Speaker 4: be some lag in that, you know, some vehicles have
Speaker 4: to be produced and then shipped to where they you know,
Speaker 4: are end up at Tesla stores and with end customers.
Speaker 4: But you know, for for this gap to be the
Speaker 4: significant in a quarter where we knew the model why
Speaker 4: changeover was happening, that's definitely notable. I think the other
Speaker 4: thing that we're likely to hear from from Musk in
Speaker 4: addition to the model y excuse is you know, for
Speaker 4: him to sort of pivot to the talk about AI
Speaker 4: and autonomous driving and you know, flip to the robotaxi
Speaker 4: event that they've you know, said is coming in June
Speaker 4: that they will start giving people rides in unsuper revised,
Speaker 4: full self driving Tesla's in Austin. That of course, is
Speaker 4: something that is potentially a catalyst in the months to come.
Speaker 3: And why Kathy Wood remains a bull for example, Crowdrudell,
Speaker 3: thank you very much. Indeed, in another blow to Elon Musk,
Speaker 3: his Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate was dealt a resounding loss
Speaker 3: in the state's judicial race. That's despite Musk's backing of
Speaker 3: nearly twenty million dollars into the campaign. Now, former state
Speaker 3: Attorney General Brad Schimmel lost to the Circuit Court judge
Speaker 3: Susan Crawford, who led with fifty five percent of the votes.
Speaker 3: Now that's according to the Associated Press. Still, it wasn't
Speaker 3: a full win for Democrats in Florida special elections. They
Speaker 3: fell short on their bids for two critical House seats.
Speaker 3: And let's just turn our attention now to what also
Speaker 3: Elon Musk must be navigating, which is President Trump's tariff plan.
Speaker 3: They're coming down to the wire, and this is as
Speaker 3: his team is apparently still finalizing the level and scope
Speaker 3: of the new import taxes he is slated to unveil
Speaker 3: this afternoon, which of course could be a major shock
Speaker 3: compared to the US's tariff right historically.
Speaker 2: Blim mergs.
Speaker 3: Mike Shepherd joins us for more. What are the finer
Speaker 3: details that we're still expecting beyond doubt.
Speaker 5: Well, Caro, those are the things that we're trying to
Speaker 5: find out at this hour. We're all holding our breath
Speaker 5: here in Washington and really on Wall Street too, to
Speaker 5: see what will emerge from those deliberations by the President
Speaker 5: and his team. They're looking at a basically choice between
Speaker 5: three paths. One is the reciprocal tariffs that we've heard
Speaker 5: President Trump talk about recent weeks, This idea that we
Speaker 5: charge them, in his words, what they charge us, in
Speaker 5: other words, customizing tariff levels depending on what they see
Speaker 5: as a relative trade barrier with US goods. The next
Speaker 5: would be doing something it's a little bit more like
Speaker 5: a tiered system where you have a lower tariff right
Speaker 5: for countries that have fewer trade barriers with the US,
Speaker 5: and a higher tariff right for countries that have more
Speaker 5: trade barriers. And then there's the third option, also Carow,
Speaker 5: of something that looks more like a flat tariff, one
Speaker 5: that would be just one level, say twenty percent worldwide,
Speaker 5: no matter the country, no matter the level of received
Speaker 5: trade barriers assessed by the administration. That would reflect what
Speaker 5: he had talked about on the campaign trail too, Chep.
Speaker 3: What's so interesting is technology has taken a hit from
Speaker 3: a valuation perspective. People trying to dissect how much this
Speaker 3: affects the semiconductor industry in particular, we've got any nuance there, Well, you.
Speaker 5: Know, we don't. There was discussion from the President and
Speaker 5: his advisors of taking a sectoral approach to the tech industry,
Speaker 5: naming the semiconductor sector in particular, and the idea was that, look,
Speaker 5: by imposing tariffs on imported chips, we will try to
Speaker 5: bring some production back here to the US. And they've
Speaker 5: even referred to TSMC's decision to move to the US's
Speaker 5: evidence that those tariff threats actually will have some effect.
Speaker 5: TSMC announced, of course, an additional one hundred billion dollar
Speaker 5: investment in the US not long after the president took office.
Speaker 5: But the effects of these tariffs will be felt across
Speaker 5: the value chain. In tech, We're going to see costs
Speaker 5: potentially rise for all manner of good that comes into
Speaker 5: the US. We're talking about computer hardware in addition to chips,
Speaker 5: we're also talking about smartphones. So the impact will be
Speaker 5: felt widely, and businesses will have to make a decision
Speaker 5: about whether they pass those costs on to consumers or
Speaker 5: they simply accept smaller margins in the process.
Speaker 3: Mike sheppin always giving us up to date. Thank you
Speaker 3: so much. Let's now bring in Michelle Guide.
Speaker 2: CEO of Purdues Crook Institute for.
Speaker 3: Tech Diplomacy, previously served in the Trump administration the previous
Speaker 3: one in terms of diplomacy and global public affairs. This
Speaker 3: inflationary pressure, Michelle, is it worth it in the short
Speaker 3: term for long term bringing potentially more manufacturing back to
Speaker 3: the US.
Speaker 6: Well, well, I'll start with Caroline. When I served as
Speaker 6: Assistant Secretary of State for Global Public Affairs, we had
Speaker 6: four thousand public affairs officers and one hundred and eighty
Speaker 6: five missions across the world, advancing one of America's key
Speaker 6: messages at the time, which was fairness and reciprocity. And
Speaker 6: that's because the President Trump had been saying it since
Speaker 6: day one. In his first foreign trip at Riad, he
Speaker 6: said it in Denaying, he said it in Warsaw, he
Speaker 6: said it at the UN twice, he said it at Davos.
Speaker 6: So fairness and reciprocity. Fair and reciprocal trade has been
Speaker 6: a key message of the United States for a very
Speaker 6: long time under this president. And I think the uncertainty
Speaker 6: that we're seeing right now is in the discomfort that
Speaker 6: we're seeing is less uncertainty and actually more of an
Speaker 6: adjustment about what the long term trajectory is going to
Speaker 6: be to make sure that the United States is as
Speaker 6: economically and technologically competitive.
Speaker 3: As possible point us to that longer term trajectory.
Speaker 2: Therefore, Michelle, this is not a surprise to you.
Speaker 3: So those that are still feeling that instability, as you
Speaker 3: call it, how do they see the next few months
Speaker 3: ago if they're a business leader having to decide where
Speaker 3: to invest.
Speaker 6: Well, I think even longer term than that, we have
Speaker 6: a strategic decision to make as a country. Are we
Speaker 6: going to wake up and or we're going to worry
Speaker 6: that the S and P is down eight point three
Speaker 6: percent since February, Or are we going to worry about
Speaker 6: the United States becoming a technology and an economic and
Speaker 6: a manufacturing powerhouse in the twenty first century so that
Speaker 6: we can lead the world and we can be the safest, freest,
Speaker 6: and most prosperous country that the world has ever seen.
Speaker 6: And if the choice is the latter, then we're going
Speaker 6: to have to re engineer a lot of things in
Speaker 6: order to be the global leader and to secure our
Speaker 6: national security in our prosperity. Tariffs are a part of that,
Speaker 6: but there's a lot more that has to be done.
Speaker 6: And we've seen in recent weeks the America First Investment
Speaker 6: Strategy come out, so we're investing into our economy and
Speaker 6: our technologies with national security in mind. We just saw
Speaker 6: a couple of days ago the announcement about the new
Speaker 6: US Investment Accelerator. All of these things are going to
Speaker 6: help us be a economic powerhouse and a manufacturing powerhouse,
Speaker 6: because not only do we have to design and innovate
Speaker 6: and code new technologies, we also have to build them
Speaker 6: because it's imperative to our national security, and.
Speaker 3: Companies have been trying to build them and ultimately using
Speaker 3: the chipsack previously, you've had Intel promised at least eight
Speaker 3: billion to be able to bring manufacturing of chips here
Speaker 3: as well as R and D. Another three billion dollars
Speaker 3: being promised if they bring R and D to the
Speaker 3: military there in particular.
Speaker 2: But now that hangs in the balance.
Speaker 3: I understand and hear you in terms of there's this
Speaker 3: new US investment accelerator. But that is a cool front
Speaker 3: certainty for these companies too.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 6: But look out outside of just the Chips Act. You
Speaker 6: had the soft bank investment one hundred billion dollars to
Speaker 6: start moving to five hundred billion dollars to build AI
Speaker 6: data and energy infrastructure here in the United States. TSMC
Speaker 6: dedicated another one hundred billion dollars at Purdue Research Park.
Speaker 6: The CROC Institute is at Purdue University at Predue Research Park.
Speaker 6: SK Heinez four billion dollars to build advanced packaging. Hundai
Speaker 6: just did twenty billion dollars in Louisiana. So it's not
Speaker 6: just chipsacked and in federal spending. But there's a lot
Speaker 6: of private sector companies from foreign countries that are investing
Speaker 6: here because they want to build here, and it's all
Speaker 6: good news for the United States.
Speaker 2: Michelle. I think therefore an element of uncertain to hear.
Speaker 3: We can see what the US wants, but it's how
Speaker 3: the others react. And for many in technology, they're wondering,
Speaker 3: how did digital services become impacted? If Europe fights back
Speaker 3: on these tariffs, how do you gain that out?
Speaker 6: For business leaders, Yeah, I think that's going to be
Speaker 6: a short term and long term conversation between the US
Speaker 6: and Europe and specifically our tech companies and their regulatory bodies.
Speaker 6: But I'll say this, European Commission head Ursula vonder Lyon
Speaker 6: said yesterday that Europe is always going to look out
Speaker 6: for European values in European self interests. The United States
Speaker 6: has to do the same, which means that there has
Speaker 6: to be a level playing field between our most trusted partners,
Speaker 6: just like the EU or Mexico or Canada, in addition
Speaker 6: to adversaries like China who are trying to compete and
Speaker 6: lead in technology. And so this is all about looking
Speaker 6: toward America's self interest. We have to manufacture, we have
Speaker 6: to build, we have to innovate and make sure that
Speaker 6: we are re engineering the global system in order to
Speaker 6: serve that so that United States can lead.
Speaker 2: To compete against China.
Speaker 3: Will this ensure that or could we see TikTok almost
Speaker 3: become part of the negotiation, which takes many by surprise.
Speaker 2: We'll see.
Speaker 6: You know, the deadline's coming up on April fifth, and
Speaker 6: I think we're gonna The President has said he wants
Speaker 6: to try to find a way to maintain their presence
Speaker 6: here while protecting our national security.
Speaker 2: We'll see, but it is.
Speaker 6: Law that they have to divest or leave the United
Speaker 6: States in terms of the US China competition. More broadly,
Speaker 6: the way that we outcompete China is to innovate and
Speaker 6: enterprise and manufacture and build faster, better and smarter. And
Speaker 6: by focusing on our ability to do all of those
Speaker 6: things here at home, to unleash the private sector is
Speaker 6: our best chance of winning and leading, just as we
Speaker 6: did in the twentieth century.
Speaker 3: Shell Geide, it was great to have you on. Thank you,
Speaker 3: Perduez Kirk Institute for Tech Diplomacy.
Speaker 2: Stay well.
Speaker 3: Meanwhile, coming up plans for TikTok. Will they remain up
Speaker 3: in the air? Just three days left before it's potential.
Speaker 3: We speak with one of the bidders who's been in it.
Speaker 2: For the long haul.
Speaker 3: It's Frank McCourt Junior. This is Blomberg Technology. President Trump
Speaker 3: is set to hold a meeting today to discuss a
Speaker 3: proposal for divesting TikTok's US operations from its China's parent company,
Speaker 3: Byte Dance. This comes just days ahead of its April
Speaker 3: fifth deadline to be sold or to be banned. Sources
Speaker 3: say the administration is considering currently a deal that would
Speaker 3: include Oracle, Blackstone and other investors in a joint venture.
Speaker 3: This proposal, though, is just one being put forth by
Speaker 3: a number of interested parties in purchasing TikTok. One of
Speaker 3: those who put their bid in near the beginning is
Speaker 3: Frank McCourt, junior Project Liberty founder and executive chairman of
Speaker 3: the Court Global.
Speaker 2: He joins us, now, are you.
Speaker 3: Going to be there in Washington for this meeting? Jetting
Speaker 3: off after this? Have you been part of this conversation?
Speaker 7: Now, I'm jetting off after this, but not to Washington,
Speaker 7: and so we're interested in the same comes out of
Speaker 7: the meeting. There's still a lot in motion. Let's say,
Speaker 7: right now, Caroline, what.
Speaker 2: Do you think really is in motion?
Speaker 3: Is it a broader diplomatic sort of ping pong? That valance,
Speaker 3: it seems, is mainly needing the charge in or is
Speaker 3: it actually just trying to work out which bid works
Speaker 3: best for the US law.
Speaker 7: I think it's really beginning to digest what the real
Speaker 7: issues are here, what's really in that legislation upheld by
Speaker 7: the Supreme Court, Meaning where does the algorithm sit, who
Speaker 7: has access to it? For example, the finds huge finds
Speaker 7: here for any violation of the law, and who is
Speaker 7: responsible for those finds. So I think that now we're
Speaker 7: getting to the point of a real analysis of the
Speaker 7: law and the Supreme Court ruling and what is a
Speaker 7: legitimate bid, What is a real transaction where one could
Speaker 7: buy TikTok us TikTok and meet the spirit and the letter.
Speaker 2: Of the law.
Speaker 3: Let's go to your offer, because as it stands, you
Speaker 3: don't want the algorithm that fits the letter of the
Speaker 3: law right.
Speaker 7: Correct, Yes it does, And that's fundamentally the point here.
Speaker 7: You can't dodge that issue. The algorithm is, along with
Speaker 7: the source code, the way that China is able to
Speaker 7: manipulate what Americans read, see, and eventually think about issues.
Speaker 7: And this is highly dangerous for America. And that's why
Speaker 7: the legislation was passed with a broad bipartisan support. And
Speaker 7: so we now have a set of issues where you
Speaker 7: need to completely disentangle from the Chinese technology in order
Speaker 7: to have a bid that complies with the law. And
Speaker 7: the reason why we still believe our bid, our offer
Speaker 7: for us TikTok, is the only offer that actually meets
Speaker 7: the letter and the spirit of the law. We don't
Speaker 7: want or need the algorithm because we have a clean
Speaker 7: stack that we've been building for the last five and
Speaker 7: a half years.
Speaker 3: We understand there are four bidders. I'm going to go
Speaker 3: into one of them more clean in a minute. But
Speaker 3: who else do you understand to be the bidders out
Speaker 3: there at the moment.
Speaker 7: I'm not one hundred percent sure I've heard the number four.
Speaker 7: I don't believe there are four, and I think that
Speaker 7: there may be a mixing and matching of bidders that
Speaker 7: we're hearing about as well. So I think it's all
Speaker 7: very much a fluid situation right now, Caroline, and we'll
Speaker 7: learn more of this afternoon.
Speaker 3: This afternoon, we understand that President Trump is hearing the
Speaker 3: latest ideal around Oracle being part owner.
Speaker 2: They're already an.
Speaker 3: Infrastructure provider and Project Texas, which was full of under
Speaker 3: the previous administration, was meant to be the way in
Speaker 3: which Oracle could preserve ultimately the data of US citizens
Speaker 3: within using TikTok. Is that going to be a legitimate
Speaker 3: way that is sold here in America.
Speaker 7: Let's think about source code and operational code or algorithm.
Speaker 7: The issues are not just where it sits, but who
Speaker 7: has access to it.
Speaker 3: And this is.
Speaker 7: The source code or the algorithm could sit somewhere, but
Speaker 7: if China still has access to it, that's highly problematic.
Speaker 7: And I think at the end of the day, China
Speaker 7: has been clear. It seems to me anyway that they've
Speaker 7: been crystal clear they're not letting go of the algorithm.
Speaker 7: And what also seems to me crystal clear in the
Speaker 7: legislation is that any bid that includes the algorithm is
Speaker 7: not going to meet the criteria laid out in the law.
Speaker 7: So there's the issue. And again I go back to
Speaker 7: the reason why we made the bid and did it
Speaker 7: on behalf of Project Liberty. It was not because we
Speaker 7: set up Project Liberty to purchase you as TikTok.
Speaker 2: We set up Project Liberty.
Speaker 7: To bring forward the set of issues that are problematic
Speaker 7: with the current tech design that we have right now.
Speaker 7: It just so happens that TikTok was an opportunity that
Speaker 7: presented itself where we stepped forward and said, hey, why
Speaker 7: don't we turn a problem into a solution. Here, let's
Speaker 7: buy you as TikTok, move it over to a clean
Speaker 7: stack where you and I control our identity, control and
Speaker 7: own our data, permission its use, and basically have a
Speaker 7: different Internet, which I would argue will be vastly better
Speaker 7: for people, vastly better for democracy, for society, and for children.
Speaker 3: You want a decentralized future of social media. At the
Speaker 3: same time, the administration is trying to weigh up future
Speaker 3: relationships with China. We also know that President Trump really
Speaker 3: liked using TikTok as a way in which to tell
Speaker 3: his message during the campaign to the younger audience. When
Speaker 3: you think about the potential oracle bid, you said, it's
Speaker 3: very fluid. But who else might be joining that? We've
Speaker 3: heard of Blackstain, We've had a VCS for example. Do
Speaker 3: you know any other players that might be getting into
Speaker 3: that bid.
Speaker 7: Well, we've talked to I believe all of the existing
Speaker 7: investors in Bye Dance, US investors in Byte Dance, and
Speaker 7: I think all or most all would be happy to
Speaker 7: stay involved in the transaction. I mean, why not, Caroline.
Speaker 7: It's better to spin off a company, keep an interest
Speaker 7: in it, hope for the best rather than have the
Speaker 7: company shut down.
Speaker 2: General Lanteka talking about so all.
Speaker 7: These names that you're hearing, they're all around the deal
Speaker 7: because they have an interest in the deal. As far
Speaker 7: as President Trump and his affinity for TikTok, we can
Speaker 7: create a version of TikTok that he'll like just as much,
Speaker 7: if not more, because it will do the same good
Speaker 7: things without putting Americans at risk.
Speaker 3: Do you think there's any way that we get a
Speaker 3: deal by the deadline of.
Speaker 2: The fifth.
Speaker 7: I personally think that's highly unlikely. But we'll know more
Speaker 7: this afternoon or certainly.
Speaker 2: By the fifth.
Speaker 3: And are they coming to you directly? Who are you
Speaker 3: speaking to within the administeron?
Speaker 7: Our conversations have been with the Vice President and the
Speaker 7: Vice President's office, and.
Speaker 3: The leaning you get from Vice President Vance, is he
Speaker 3: taking into consideration the future of how social media works
Speaker 3: within the United States, the future of an algorithm being
Speaker 3: in China or not?
Speaker 2: Or is he seeing as much more of as a
Speaker 2: diplomatic effort.
Speaker 7: Oh, you'd have to ask the Vice President that. I
Speaker 7: certainly hope he's seeing the broader issues of the future
Speaker 7: of the Internet, and I know is concerned about our
Speaker 7: national security.
Speaker 3: Many are also questioning just the price point, What would
Speaker 3: you be willing to pay without the algorithm, without the
Speaker 3: so called secret source.
Speaker 7: Well, we've put a we've put a number of twenty
Speaker 7: billion on the assets without the algorithm, and so, and
Speaker 7: we're sticking by that. We think that's a very full
Speaker 7: number for just the user base and the data where
Speaker 7: we're we're not getting all that back end. But we
Speaker 7: don't want, our need the back end. And that's the point,
Speaker 7: right we've built it, which is why we happen to
Speaker 7: be in the right place at the right time for
Speaker 7: this transaction. We meet the spirit and the letter of
Speaker 7: the law. We keep us TikTok lit up and everybody wins.
Speaker 3: Is that anyway that they go back to Congress and
Speaker 3: re offer this deal.
Speaker 2: Is there any way that that law ends up not sticking?
Speaker 7: I can't see it. I can't see it. This was
Speaker 7: a law to pass for good reason, and as I
Speaker 7: said earlier, highly broadly bipartisan people saw clearly the national
Speaker 7: security issues associated here, and the and the and the
Speaker 7: risks of the United States and to US citizens. It
Speaker 7: was It was a law that was appropriately passed, one
Speaker 7: of the few that was passed with bipartisan support, and
Speaker 7: in the speed at which it was passed, signed by
Speaker 7: the President, upheld by the Appellate Court, upheld by this
Speaker 7: Supreme Court. Twelve judges said, this is a valid law.
Speaker 7: This is a real set of national security issues. Zero
Speaker 7: judges were on.
Speaker 2: The other side of that.
Speaker 7: Many of the same people that voted for this law
Speaker 7: are in the Trump administration. They understand the issues and
Speaker 7: that hasn't changed. And what I want to emphasize is
Speaker 7: there is a solution to this. There's a solution that
Speaker 7: meets the criteria of the legislation, keeps TikTok lit up,
Speaker 7: protects American citizens, and begins to show the way of
Speaker 7: a new Internet.
Speaker 3: Will current uses of TikTok love your vision of the
Speaker 3: Internet as much as they love the algorithm.
Speaker 2: And I think they're going to love it more.
Speaker 7: We call it the People's bid because we're going to
Speaker 7: green Bay packer it, give them a piece of it.
Speaker 7: Let them actually benefit financially from the growth of the
Speaker 7: platform and the value they're not just from the business
Speaker 7: they create on the platform, but why not give them
Speaker 7: a piece of the entire platform so that they can
Speaker 7: benefit from the equity that's built up in the platform itself, bringing.
Speaker 2: In the sports. We love it. Thank you as ever
Speaker 2: for joining us.
Speaker 3: Let us know what comes out of your discussions post
Speaker 3: the meeting today. Frank McCord of Project Liberty and of
Speaker 3: course Court Global, he is potentially offering to buy TikTok.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to BLUEBG Technology. I'm Karen Hide in New York. Now,
Speaker 3: if you have children, the chances of you knowing about
Speaker 3: Roadblocks are pretty high. It's a virtual universe, of course,
Speaker 3: that allows users to create, to collaborate nearly eighty five
Speaker 3: million daily active users.
Speaker 2: Roadblocks is out with a slew of announcements.
Speaker 3: Including a partnership with Google, as well as new parental controls.
Speaker 3: Shares rallying following the news and let's just unpack it
Speaker 3: all in inexclusive conversation with Roblock CEO David Bazuki.
Speaker 2: David is great.
Speaker 3: To have you on the show, and I'm so interested
Speaker 3: in what analysts are calling right now a smart strategic
Speaker 3: move this partnership with Google. What brands are responding to
Speaker 3: this new partnership we've unveiled.
Speaker 8: Hey, great to be on the show and want to
Speaker 8: highlight you know, we shared a really huge vision of
Speaker 8: having ten percent of all gaming running on roadblocks, which
Speaker 8: is a really big vision. And you know, we feel
Speaker 8: gaming is still in the in the prehistoric times as
Speaker 8: far as how people consume and use gaming content. We
Speaker 8: have a huge creator community who is already creating amazing businesses.
Speaker 8: This partnership with Google is another way for those creators
Speaker 8: to help build their business and monetize, and for our
Speaker 8: older users, we're going to give our creators side by
Speaker 8: side virtual currency and side by side subscriptions another way
Speaker 8: to help build their business on roadblocks. We have many
Speaker 8: creators making over ten million dollars a year on the
Speaker 8: platform and some making over fifty million dollars a year.
Speaker 8: So this is a really sponsor ing big emerging studios
Speaker 8: building on our platform.
Speaker 2: It's about the ecosystem.
Speaker 3: I'm interested you say for older users, who do you
Speaker 3: think the brands really want to expose themselves to right now?
Speaker 3: In terms of generations? Is it still all about gen z?
Speaker 3: Is it skewing upward?
Speaker 8: We shared the vision once again of ultimately getting to
Speaker 8: a billion daily active users on our platform with this
Speaker 8: intermediate step of ten percent of gaming and in last
Speaker 8: quarter we shared a lot of fun stats are seventeen
Speaker 8: through twenty four age group is growing very rapidly. We've
Speaker 8: become a platform where more of our users are over thirteen.
Speaker 8: That seventeen through twenty four year old segment is really
Speaker 8: hard to reach.
Speaker 9: More and more of them are on roadblocks.
Speaker 8: As we start to have amazing experiences, whether it's NFL Universe,
Speaker 8: Dressed to Dress to Impress experiences where these types of
Speaker 8: users are on our platform.
Speaker 3: Dress to Impress immediately makes me think about, well, obviously
Speaker 3: the retail opportunity for brands, but also how it becomes
Speaker 3: synonymous with physical well too, take us forward is what
Speaker 3: really advertising will eventually be?
Speaker 2: For roadblocks?
Speaker 8: Okay, well, if we step forward, way forward in a
Speaker 8: sci fi scenario, I can imagine, just like it's fun
Speaker 8: to go shopping at the mall today, it's of course
Speaker 8: we're going to go shopping with our virtual avatars. We're
Speaker 8: going to be able to go to stores, see our
Speaker 8: favorite brands. We're going to be able to try clothing
Speaker 8: on and see how it looks on our avatar. We're
Speaker 8: going to have a lot of fun doing it, and
Speaker 8: when we want to buy the physical or the virtual item,
Speaker 8: we'll be able to make that purchase. So we may
Speaker 8: look back in ten or twenty years ago. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 8: it was weird that all of our shopping on the
Speaker 8: web was two D rather than jumping forward to a
Speaker 8: future three D and ultimately four dimensional world. So someday
Speaker 8: maybe we'll go virtual shopping together.
Speaker 2: Well, advertisers are going to be excited by it.
Speaker 3: The analyst are excited by it because ultimately this will
Speaker 3: become a bigger and bigger part of your business model.
Speaker 3: When do you think you'll be able to break it
Speaker 3: out and show just how much advertising is bringing to
Speaker 3: your bottom line?
Speaker 8: Yeah, we once again on this journey to getting over
Speaker 8: ten percent of the gaming market space. We've shared we
Speaker 8: expect to be growing our bookings at over twenty percent
Speaker 8: year on year, continuously going forward while generating a lot
Speaker 8: of cash. And we are looking forward to when we
Speaker 8: break out the advertising revenue and the commerce revenue.
Speaker 9: We haven't shared when we will do that.
Speaker 3: Come on the show, Dave on the show, What you
Speaker 3: got to break it for us?
Speaker 2: On the show?
Speaker 8: Oh, I can't break it on the show, but I'll
Speaker 8: call you before we break it out and I'll let
Speaker 8: you know I.
Speaker 3: Appreciate that nook more seriously for brands to really commit
Speaker 3: here and to stick with it for your users to
Speaker 3: remain It's also all about safety. I know you even
Speaker 3: putting a lot of thought into that. You've got new
Speaker 3: parental controls that you're announcing today for us, Dave, talk
Speaker 3: us through them.
Speaker 9: Yeah, well, take a step back.
Speaker 8: Even when we first launched the platform, very early on,
Speaker 8: our goal was to build the safest place on the Internet,
Speaker 8: and as a Roadblocks has become more embedded in our culture,
Speaker 8: we're constantly shipping safety improvements. We're really trying to support
Speaker 8: parents to make great decisions for their family. So we
Speaker 8: already preemptively have screen time limits on Roadblocks. Parents can
Speaker 8: set that with their family. We're announcing today more parental visibility.
Speaker 8: Parents will be able to see where the people and
Speaker 8: their family, the younger people at least, are playing on Roadblocks.
Speaker 8: They're going to have more and more control of who
Speaker 8: their kids are friends with, and they'll actually have control
Speaker 8: over what experiences they might say is not appropriate for
Speaker 8: our family. So this notion of focusing on safety and
Speaker 8: giving parents control in addition to all of the other
Speaker 8: safety work we do, is really a big priority for us.
Speaker 2: How does that fit with the kids actual experience, Dave?
Speaker 3: And how do you think in any way we'll start
Speaker 3: to see less time spent on the product?
Speaker 8: We once again, there's something really cool about Roadblocks and
Speaker 8: this form of social media. The form of social media
Speaker 8: that roadblox is really communication and connection. And when I
Speaker 8: was a kid, sometime on rainy days, I would pick
Speaker 8: up the phone and that's how I'd hang out with
Speaker 8: my friends. Roadblocks is less about sharing short videos and
Speaker 8: watching them by myself or sharing images of myself. It's
Speaker 8: about doing things with other people. And so I think parents,
Speaker 8: working with the young people and their family will figure
Speaker 8: out what's right for them.
Speaker 3: At one point, you did suggest that if parents don't
Speaker 3: trust the product, they should keep their kids off.
Speaker 2: What's the reaction been to that, right, Well, I.
Speaker 9: Think there was a lot more context to that.
Speaker 8: What we were talking about is comfort and the notion
Speaker 8: in we think parents should be comfortable with what the
Speaker 8: young people are doing on their platform.
Speaker 9: We do.
Speaker 8: You know, safety is our top priority. We're shipping safety
Speaker 8: improvements every week and that This is just one of many,
Speaker 8: many announcements. You know, one of the biggest things we
Speaker 8: do on Roadblocks is try to keep people on our
Speaker 8: platform so they don't go to other platforms where they
Speaker 8: may share images or where they may chat with unfilled texts.
Speaker 8: So that quote I made was about parents should be
Speaker 8: comfortable with what their family is doing.
Speaker 2: How much can AI make them more comfortable.
Speaker 8: So behind the scenes before, we're in an amazing time
Speaker 8: with AI right now. It's changing how we create. It's
Speaker 8: changing ultimately how people create on roadblocks, and we think
Speaker 8: what's going to happen on Roadblocks is rather than maybe
Speaker 8: the text world or the image world, which is the
Speaker 8: one D world or the two D world, on roadblocks,
Speaker 8: we're going to be supporting the three D world where
Speaker 8: people are building three D objects. Behind the scenes, we've
Speaker 8: been building an AI platform for four years. We have
Speaker 8: over two hundred models running on Roadblocks. All of the
Speaker 8: images that people use when they're creating, all of the text,
Speaker 8: all of the voice on Roadblocks runs through some of
Speaker 8: these models, and so AA has really been a foundation
Speaker 8: of what we've done. Our voice model is so good
Speaker 8: and so efficient that we've shared it on hugging face
Speaker 8: so other companies can use it. I was just at
Speaker 8: the Game Developers Conference. I ran into a startup and
Speaker 8: I said, how are you going to do voice safety?
Speaker 8: And they said, we're going to use your open source
Speaker 8: voice models. So we're really trying to give back to
Speaker 8: the community and these areas where we've got, you know, expertise,
Speaker 8: and we've also joined a consortium to try to make
Speaker 8: this open source for more small companies.
Speaker 3: That consortium roost Robust Online Open Safety Tools alongside Google
Speaker 3: and discord just how collaborative is it with other platforms
Speaker 3: when it comes to safety or is there more collaboration needed.
Speaker 8: Today we're one of the founding members. We want to
Speaker 8: more and more make open source. Some of the models
Speaker 8: we've built for safety voices is arguably one of the
Speaker 8: first steps for that, and it's exciting to me that
Speaker 8: I'm starting to hear of small startup companies who will
Speaker 8: simply use our voice model.
Speaker 9: We've also made our.
Speaker 8: Three D foundational AI model, the cube model, also open source,
Speaker 8: and we believe once again these foundational models, because we
Speaker 8: have such an expertise in training and building, can be
Speaker 8: used by others.
Speaker 3: I just go back to what you said at the
Speaker 3: start there, Dave, that you wanted to build the safest
Speaker 3: place on the Internet all the way back in two
Speaker 3: thousand and six. The world was such a different place
Speaker 3: in two thousand and six, and yes, we might as
Speaker 3: parents have been anxious about what our kids were doing
Speaker 3: on the streets. But now we've got an anxiety level
Speaker 3: around all of what could be going on the Internet.
Speaker 3: And then you add AI on top of that, and
Speaker 3: the moderation crisis that evolves of that of ever more
Speaker 3: content that you have to oversee. Just what does it
Speaker 3: feel like, as someone who I know is a parent
Speaker 3: has their nephew nieces using roeblocks, is really thoughtful about
Speaker 3: the future of Internet? Does it upset you or how
Speaker 3: does it make you respond when the worst of humanity
Speaker 3: creeps on it.
Speaker 8: I'm surprisingly very optimistic, and I'm surprising, you know.
Speaker 9: I'm optimistic because.
Speaker 8: More and more, from the safety standpoint, AI gives us
Speaker 8: enormous power and enormous tools to help moderate both content
Speaker 8: as well as communication. On the creation side, I'm very
Speaker 8: optimistic because I more and more people on roadblocks are
Speaker 8: going to become creators, and people who feel they could
Speaker 8: never have designed clothing or could never have designed a
Speaker 8: new house, or could never design a sports car.
Speaker 9: Are going to start.
Speaker 8: Being able to design these things by talking about them
Speaker 8: and not just design them one time, but iterate on them,
Speaker 8: improve on them. So just like digital tools like photoshop
Speaker 8: replaced oil painting, I actually feel AI is going to
Speaker 8: make us all feel more like creators and supercharged creativity
Speaker 8: amongst all of us.
Speaker 3: So we love the low fi vibes of roadblocks in
Speaker 3: the past, how much is it going to become high
Speaker 3: fidelity what we're currently seeing on our screens.
Speaker 8: The long term spec for the product, and really one
Speaker 8: of the most difficult specifications of any technical platform is
Speaker 8: giving artists complete freedom. And with video right now, we
Speaker 8: could argue that artists have freedom. We see animation, we
Speaker 8: see anime, we see photo realistic, we see hyper realistic.
Speaker 8: We're introducing more and more functionality, and we mentioned this
Speaker 8: part of the notion that we want to have ten
Speaker 8: percent of the gaming space on our platform, So ultimately
Speaker 8: artists can either go our traditional BLOCKI style, a more
Speaker 8: realistic style, or ultimately, with some of the cloud facilities,
Speaker 8: we're building high res styles that they're used to in
Speaker 8: some of the other types of games they see out
Speaker 8: there in the market.
Speaker 3: You talk about how you want to serve the market,
Speaker 3: the ecosystem, the developers you've done. I mean, the value
Speaker 3: creation that we've seen with one of the key developers
Speaker 3: being Brookhaven, has been phenomenal.
Speaker 2: They sold out to Oldex.
Speaker 3: Do you know the sort of size of deal and
Speaker 3: how many millions are going for those sorts of purchases.
Speaker 9: I can't comment on the size of the deal.
Speaker 8: I'm pretty sure the deals are starting to get into
Speaker 8: nine figures, not eight figures. At the Roadblocks Developer conference
Speaker 8: last September, one of my ten prognostications was we're going
Speaker 8: to see a billion dollar market value deal for a
Speaker 8: studio on Roadblocks, and arguably we should see that happen.
Speaker 8: If we keep pushing the technology for the gaming space,
Speaker 8: and if we have ten percent of the gaming in
Speaker 8: the world running on our platform.
Speaker 9: We're going to see more and more of those studios
Speaker 9: start to show.
Speaker 2: Up talking about gaming.
Speaker 3: But you're also talking about how this is ultimately a
Speaker 3: social endeavor. Who is your competitor right now? Is it
Speaker 3: eyes and minutes spent on TikTok and social media or
Speaker 3: is it other gaming platforms.
Speaker 9: It's an interesting metaphor it.
Speaker 8: As we think about competition, we think more about.
Speaker 9: This vision we have in the company, and.
Speaker 8: Also what is technically possible with today's technology.
Speaker 9: We know it's technically possible ultimately.
Speaker 8: For a young creator to build a really interesting experience,
Speaker 8: have it immediately be live in any country, be within
Speaker 8: the policies of any country, have it automatically translated to
Speaker 8: any language, and have it run either on a very
Speaker 8: low end device a two gigabyte RAM phone or a
Speaker 8: super high end gaming PC, and allow people to join
Speaker 8: that experience instantaneously without a download. Because we know all
Speaker 8: of this is possible, and we're building it as quickly
Speaker 8: as we can, we do sometimes think our competition is
Speaker 8: our own ability to iterate quickly.
Speaker 3: Some might say about TikTok being a competitor. We had
Speaker 3: Jesse Tinsley on the show previously. He said, you're supporting
Speaker 3: his bid for TikTok from a personal perspective, I.
Speaker 8: A high level, I won't comment on what bid I'm supporting.
Speaker 8: I do think there's one of the things we're highlighting
Speaker 8: in our discovery system is transparency, and I think there's
Speaker 8: an underlying theme of all of these bids, whether you
Speaker 8: know the algorithm is running in the US or at
Speaker 8: the least it's completely transparent. I think people all around
Speaker 8: the world would like to see transparency in these algorithms.
Speaker 8: One of the things we're doing more and more on
Speaker 8: roadblocks for the creators who also our users find cool
Speaker 8: experiences on roadblocks is being very transparent with how our
Speaker 8: algorithm is working, so developers can can know how we're
Speaker 8: forwarding things to the user. But I do think whatever
Speaker 8: the bid on TikTok is, we're going to see transparency
Speaker 8: of that algorithm and arguably an air gap where that
Speaker 8: algorithm has to run in the United States.
Speaker 3: The administration pretty involved in the TikTok now, the administration
Speaker 3: the current SEC now inheriting a potential investigation into roadblocks.
Speaker 2: How is that going day?
Speaker 9: I can't comment on that.
Speaker 8: I constantly say we run an extremely type chip and
Speaker 8: we're very proud of everything we do.
Speaker 3: Pride is something you want to make global, and you're
Speaker 3: talking about how people can create immersive world and immediately
Speaker 3: go into any language, any country right here, right now,
Speaker 3: it's quite difficult to be a global country company when
Speaker 3: based in the US. How do you feel about the
Speaker 3: trade anxiety that's currently undergoing and what it means for
Speaker 3: your business.
Speaker 9: I was just in Emirates at the World Forum, and what.
Speaker 8: Was interesting is in Emirates there are some top Roadblocks
Speaker 8: creators who are are contributing code to some of the
Speaker 8: top experiences on the platform, and also some top creators
Speaker 8: who are are fashion creators who are doing quite well
Speaker 8: in the virtual economy on the platform. Optimistic for platforms
Speaker 8: like Roadblocks, where there's a demand for amazing content, more
Speaker 8: and more of our creators, whether they're in the USA,
Speaker 8: whether they're in the Gulf region, whether they're down in
Speaker 8: Brazil where you know we have an enormous activity. I'm
Speaker 8: really excited that we can offer a global economy for
Speaker 8: these creators, and we see our top creators coming from
Speaker 8: all around the world dressed to impress team. For example,
Speaker 8: I believe is in the.
Speaker 2: UK your username is build Aman. Are you still busy
Speaker 2: building a view.
Speaker 3: That this is going to be the metaverse that we're
Speaker 3: going to live in that in the next few years?
Speaker 2: Is that what the ultimate vision is here day?
Speaker 8: The vision we have is humans are always trying to
Speaker 8: find a way to communicate, and we used to use
Speaker 8: the mail system. We use the phone system, we use texting,
Speaker 8: we're on video, we're communicating on video, and we believe
Speaker 8: three D communication is going to sit side by side
Speaker 8: with that.
Speaker 9: Three D communication is pretty interesting.
Speaker 8: We can change our avatar, we can play Hide and
Speaker 8: Seek together, we can go to a concert together. So
Speaker 8: we're really optimistic about what we call this evolution to
Speaker 8: three D and forty communication. We think it's going to
Speaker 8: be big. We think this is a natural evolution of technology.
Speaker 8: We're in a great opportunity to help usher this in
Speaker 8: in a safe and civil way.
Speaker 9: And when we get back to building, we actually.
Speaker 8: Call our people and our team with in Roadblocks builders,
Speaker 8: so that that builder man idea has really stayed with us.
Speaker 3: David Zuki, great to have you on the show, co
Speaker 3: founder CEO Roadblocks, stay well.
Speaker 2: Coming up with sticking with gaming because.
Speaker 3: Nintendo has announced the release date and price, it's highly anticipated.
Speaker 2: Switch to details next.
Speaker 3: Quick check in on Tesla shares though, because we're now
Speaker 3: up two point seven percent this after of course, Tesla
Speaker 3: deliveries come in well below expectations, about three hundred and
Speaker 3: sixty thousand overall when the market have wanted three hundred
Speaker 3: and ninety. How there does seem to be news coming
Speaker 3: more broadly from the administration, hinting to his close relations
Speaker 3: via that Trump is telling his inner circle that Musk
Speaker 3: will leave soon. That's according to Politico, this is Blue
Speaker 3: Beg technology. Nintendo has revealed new details, so it's highly
Speaker 3: anticipated Switch to which it plans to release on June
Speaker 3: the fifth.
Speaker 2: This is the video game makers really first entirely.
Speaker 3: New platform in eight long years and has the potential
Speaker 3: to lift sales after a pretty lackluster few years for
Speaker 3: the industry.
Speaker 2: His to tell us more is Bloomberg Cecilia de Nastasio.
Speaker 2: It's expensive.
Speaker 10: It is expensive, So four.
Speaker 3: Hundred and fifty dollars, what is that like in context
Speaker 3: of the market.
Speaker 10: There are other handheld offerings now that are on the
Speaker 10: market that we're not on the market when the original
Speaker 10: Switch was released, and they're selling for somewhere between four
Speaker 10: hundred and seven hundred dollars. But at the same time,
Speaker 10: Nintendo has a lot of star power that these competitors
Speaker 10: from Lenovo, Asis, Valve Corp. And potentially even Microsoft, which
Speaker 10: is also teased to handheld console do not.
Speaker 2: Okay, so it can stand out from the crowd.
Speaker 3: What an analy is saying to the date, the price point,
Speaker 3: the release, how much anticipation is there.
Speaker 10: I talked to several analysts this morning who are very
Speaker 10: optimistic about sales for the switch to.
Speaker 2: They say that some of the launch titles.
Speaker 10: Including a new Mario Kart, a new Curby game Donkey Kong,
Speaker 10: could propel sales for the switch to.
Speaker 3: And of course the Nintendo has been so clever at
Speaker 3: using that IP and getting into different ways. It's a
Speaker 3: style of marketing in many ways. Where else will they
Speaker 3: be leaning into and who ultimately is their target market
Speaker 3: right now?
Speaker 10: The switch to, unlike the original switch, is more of
Speaker 10: an incremental change to its predecessor. So the WEU which
Speaker 10: came before the switch looked completely different, and now the
Speaker 10: switch to it's mostly just improved screen size, battery life resolution,
Speaker 10: some sort of small quality of life adjustments. The target
Speaker 10: audience for the switch to is someone who loves their
Speaker 10: Switch one, and we know that there are hundreds of
Speaker 10: millions of people who fit into that category but want
Speaker 10: something with a little bit more of a modern feel
Speaker 10: and touch.
Speaker 2: But off to eight years, is it enough of a change?
Speaker 2: And listen talking to say that it is.
Speaker 10: Again, there are more powerful handheld gaming devices on the
Speaker 10: market now than ever, including four around a similar price
Speaker 10: point to Nintendo's. However, Nintendo sells consoles with their exclusive games,
Speaker 10: which are widely loved in the video game community.
Speaker 3: And so we're not worried about the consumer that's under
Speaker 3: pressure at this point looking at a price point like
Speaker 3: that looking to upgrade.
Speaker 10: People really love their video games and are willing to
Speaker 10: do a lot to get their hands on a new console.
Speaker 10: It's something that people will budget out for months or
Speaker 10: years in.
Speaker 3: Advance, okay, and even be pourchasing from some international makes
Speaker 3: Cecilia Donastasio great on all things in Nintendo. Meanwhile, let's
Speaker 3: get back to the rest of the market, because Tesla
Speaker 3: shares actually rebounding. There were session loans previously on the
Speaker 3: back of lackluster deliveries. But now that reports in Politico
Speaker 3: that Trump has told his inner circle that Elon Musk
Speaker 3: will be leaving soon, reimbogs Isabelle, Lee joins us some more,
Speaker 3: and many feeling good he can be more focused on
Speaker 3: Tesla or I'm assuming absolutely Caroline.
Speaker 11: So in the morning, the mood was kind of gloomy
Speaker 11: because Tesla saw its vehicle sales falling thirteen percent in
Speaker 11: the first quarter. That's the lowest since twenty twenty two.
Speaker 11: And this is common because they transitioned their model wise factory,
Speaker 11: it's common to loose some output. The uncommon thing is
Speaker 11: Elon Musk involvement, which some analysts cited and around eleven
Speaker 11: seventeen political publisher's story. In around eleven nineteen, you see
Speaker 11: shares of Tesla flip back to the green and now
Speaker 11: it's edging higher around two and a half percent. So really,
Speaker 11: with this stop, there's just one headline after another. But
Speaker 11: with the political reporting, maybe that means Elon Musk will
Speaker 11: focus more on Tesla, and maybe that would mean less headlines,
Speaker 11: but it remains to be seen.
Speaker 3: We're talking of one headline after another. We've got another
Speaker 3: one coming from the New York Times. Amazon puts in
Speaker 3: a last minute bid to acquire TikTok.
Speaker 2: It's reporting by New York Times.
Speaker 3: Amazon shares currently spiking a little bit higher. The investor
Speaker 3: reaction seeming to like the integration of social media within
Speaker 3: Amazon's more broad remit. We're seeing Amazon bid in coming
Speaker 3: in via an offer letter to Vance and to lutnix So,
Speaker 3: to the Commerce secretary and to vice president Vance.
Speaker 2: So says The New York Times. We will be reaching
Speaker 2: out for Amazon response.
Speaker 3: It had been rumored in the market that they might
Speaker 3: be an acquirer. And of course Amazon in many ways
Speaker 3: has the sheer scale of money and cash on board
Speaker 3: to be able to afford it. But the question is
Speaker 3: regulatory Will they be allowed to purchase such a significant
Speaker 3: asset when they already have the DOJ and they have
Speaker 3: many a regulator breathing down their neck when it comes
Speaker 3: to M and A of late, But as we say,
Speaker 3: repeat New York Times coming in with reporting that Amazon
Speaker 3: has made a last minute offer a bid to acquire
Speaker 3: all of TikTok, the US part of btdowns.
Speaker 2: Now that does it for this position of Bloomberg Technology.
Speaker 2: Do not forget to check out our podcast.
Speaker 3: You can find it on the terminal as well as
Speaker 3: online on Apples, Spotify, and iHeart from New York.
Speaker 2: This is Blomberg Technology.